Damn Cold Night
by Bohemian Storm
Summary: Christian begs for someone to save him. Songfic. Reviews are greatly appreciated.


Disclaimer: The following characters belong to Baz Luhrmann. The lyrics belong to Avril Lavigne; an awesome singer/song writer, not to mention a Canadian!   
  
Damn Cold Night  
  
Christian stood on a bridge in London, England, a manuscript in one hand and a bottle of Absinthe in the other. He shivered in the strong wind that gusted around him. He was home, yet it didn't seem like 'home' to him. Home was a faraway place, with forgotten people and faces. Home was a nightclub, a dance hall, whatever you wanted to call it. Wherever he ended up in the world, the Moulin Rouge would always be his home.  
  
He stood alone and waited for her to come. It was a dark night, the moonlight muted by the grey clouds that forever covered the London sky. He waited for long hours, wondering if there would truly be someone on their way to save him. Christian had left Montmartre without saying goodbye to those that he had once held dear. Toulouse had watched with sad eyes from his window at the penniless poet had walked to the train station with his manuscript and a bag containing the little money he had and the Absinthe that he was now drinking. He had walked past the Argentinean, ignoring the man's pleas to stay. He had continued past the cafe where Satie sat, writing his music, turning his face away from the man that begged him to reconsider.   
  
Their appeals had been hard to stomach, but Toulouse had been the worst of all. He simply watched as Christian fled the tiny village. His eyes were huge and imploring, studying Christian's every move as he packed. Even as worked himself into a rage and tore pages and pages of work off the walls, Toulouse just watched. After hurtling his typewriter out the window, Christian had turned to Toulouse, satisfied that his last actions were certain to work up some kind of response.  
  
The tiny painter just sat and watched, the wretched pity that Christian hated so much brimming in his eyes.  
  
"Damn you," Christian had hissed, his last words to his best friend. "Damn you and everything you made me believe in."  
  
So he had gone back to London and was now staring over the water that ran under the bridge. His bridge, his ending if he so wished it to be. The end of his life, the end of his writing career, the end of his drinking. He could finish it all with one, simple movement into the water.  
  
But Christian refused to believe he would die without her knowing their story had been written. The manuscript was clenched so tightly in his fist that the words had begun to run with the sweat from his hand. He had waited here for her so many nights, but she had never come and each night Christian began to grow more and more desperate.  
  
"Please,"he whispered to the night air. "Please send her."   
  
Without thinking, Christian opened his heart to the sky and the water that rushed beneath him.  
  
"I'm standing on the bridge," he sang softly. "I'm waiting in the dark. I thought that you'd be here by now." His voice quavered slightly, but he pushed on, ignoring the pain in his chest as he sang.  
  
"There's nothing but the rain, no footsteps on the ground. I'm listening but there's no sound," his voice lifted the words, soft and sweet into the air where they disappeared into the darkness. He believed, for a fleeting moment, that his words were being delivered directly to Satine, wherever she was. She would hear his song and she would come home to him.  
  
"Isn't anyone trying to find me?" Christian sang, the lump in his throat making it hard to work out the words. "Won't somebody come take me home?" Home . . . home, the word that he no longer understood. Where would one take him if they did come to take him home? He no longer knew where home was.  
  
Home was where he had felt loved. Home was the place where his friends had been, Toulouse, Satie . . . Satine. Home was the place where he had fallen head over heels in love with a beautiful courtesan and home was the place where his entire life had been turned upside down.  
  
His story, the entire story of the Moulin Rouge was clenched in his hand. With a fluid motion, he lifted that hand and held the fluttering pages over the dark and churning water.  
  
"It's a damn cold night," he sang fiercely, "trying to figure out this life. Won't you take me by the hand?" he implored, not knowing exactly who he was asking. He needed someone there, be it Satine or Toulouse, or even his father. Someone to lead him to the right answer. Mostly though, he prayed for Satine.  
  
The feeling that he wasn't alone hit him in that moment. With wide eyes, Christian slowly pulled his hand back from the bridge and held the manuscript close to his chest.  
  
"Take me somewhere new," he sang in a near whisper. "I don't know who you are, but I'm with you."  
  
No one answered his song and his shoulder  
slumped dejectedly. He was alone, his mind had tricked him into believing that Satine had been there with him, but he was still alone. Tears brimmed in his eyes and the hand holding the bottle of Absinthe unconsciously released. It shattered as his feet and shards of glass ricocheted off the ground, but he ignored it.   
  
"I'm looking for a place," Christian sang, "I'm searching for a face. Is anybody here I know?" He bit back the sobs that were threatening to rise. He needed someone in this mess he called a life, someone to explain things to him as he went on. "'Cause nothing's going right, and everything's a mess and no one likes to be alone."  
  
But he was alone, forever and permanently alone.   
  
Christian dropped the manuscript without noticing as he hoisted himself onto the side of the bridge. He sat on the edge, his feet dangling above the agitated waters. Dark rolls of water topped with white foam, swirling beneath him, inviting him down.  
  
"It's a damn cold night, trying to figure out this life." The words poured angrily from his mouth. He had no reason to be angry, he had been the one to abandon his friends, but justifiable or not, the feeling was there. He was angry because he was alone, and he was alone because he had chosen to be that way after Satine's death.  
  
"It's a damn cold night," he hissed, "trying to figure out this life. Won't you take me by the hand?"  
  
"I will if you get down fwom there," the voice penetrated the dark and Christian stiffened.  
  
"Who . . . hello?"  
  
"Get down Chwistian," the voice repeated.  
  
"It's a damn cold night," Christian sang suddenly, ignoring the voice. "I'm trying to figure out this life. Won't you take me by the hand? Take me somewhere new. I don't know who you are, but I . . . I'm with you."  
  
"You know who I am Chwistian," Toulouse said, stepping toward him. " Get down, pwease."  
  
The sudden silence stretched over them, enveloping them both. Christian cowered on the edge of the bridge, his body poised to throw himself into the water. Toulouse stood nearby, the manuscript in his hands.   
  
"I won't leave you alone," Toulouse said, holding out the papers. "Pwease."  
  
"Why is everything so confusing?" Christian asked. "Maybe I'm just out of my mind." His eyes closed and he leaned forward slightly. "It's a damn cold night."  
  
"I know," Toulouse whispered. "I know it is, but you don't have to be alone anymore. I'm your fwiend Chwistian, you know I am. Pwease come down now."  
  
"Trying to figure out this life," Christian whispered.  
  
"I'll help you," Toulouse promised.  
  
"Isn't anyone trying to find me? Won't somebody come take me home?" Tears spilled over Christian's cheeks.  
  
Toulouse grasped his wrist tightly and pulled his friend back from the trouble waters that called to Christian. He was a much smaller man and catching Christian was no easy task, but he somehow managed and soon Christian was lying on the ground, his fingers once more wrapped around his manuscript.  
  
"She didn't come Toulouse." He met his friend's eyes. "She couldn't come, could she?"  
  
Toulouse shook his head. "I don't think she could my fwiend. Let me take you home Chwistian."  
  
He smiled wryly. "Home to my father?"  
  
Toulouse shook his head. "Home to Montmartre . . . it's where you belong. I tried to find you Chwistian, I did find you. I've come to take you home."  
  
Christian nodded slowly and found a smile making its way across his face. "Home. That sounds really good Toulouse."  
  
They stood together and Christian turned one final time to stare over the water running under the bridge. They had calmed slightly since he had been pulled off the edge of the bridge and he smiled. Water under the bridge, that was all it was. Water under the bridge and he'd move on, move away. He was going home, after all.   
  
He noticed that the night suddenly wasn't so cold after all.  
  
  
  
End 


End file.
